dreadnut,
What I'm getting from your post is, "My D25M kicked the arse of refinished Gibson J45 stage guitar with super low action and extra light strings!"
Don't you think it's sort of like comparing not only an apple to an orange, but an apple to a sick orange? Don't you think that you invite comment from people who know that Gibsons can be a fine sounding and playing guitar?
There are plenty of dog Gibsons and plenty of dog Guilds to go around. The best Gibson flat-tops are from around mid-30's through '54 or '55. They're pretty good up through '65. '66 and up have HUGE bridge plates underneath the top. '69 & up Gibson jumbos have the infamous double-X bracing that is truly terrible. After that I lost interest, at least until after the Millenium. I have a friend who has an '06-ish Vintage Reissue Gibson SJ that is wonderful. Some of the new ones sound good, some don't.
Is there an era for Guilds that are uniformly bad? I don't think so. Hoboken flat-tops are a little more lightly braced than '70's and '80's Westerly guitars, but Guild quality is uniform throughout that whole era (with Martin and Gibson going downhill over the same years). Having said that, most of the Guild flat-tops from the '70's and '80's are very stoutly built, with comparatively heavy bracing. My fave Luthier has a theory that all of these 30 and 40 year old Guilds are finally coming into their own because the wood is now seasoned. You may have a different theory.
Is there a special mojo to Gibsons that Guilds don't have? No, they just build them lighter. For example, they don't tuck the back braces under the kerfing on the 30's small Gibson flat-tops. They sound Great, but they need to be re-glued every 5-10 years. If you're a bean counter at Gibson, you wouldn't like the amount of money expended on warranty work, so you'd gradually change things, like going to non-scalloped X-bracing in '55, or slapping huge bridge plates into guitars in '66, etc. Martin did the same sort of thing, but even earlier.
How did Guild address the warranty issue? Again, comparatively heavy bracing. Not trying to rag on Guild, just the truth. In 1974, I played a '66-7 Guild D50 with Brazilian Rosewood. Belonged to a room mate of mine, so I played it from time to time over a few months, at least. It was a nice guitar, but it was tight, you had to hit it hard to get the sound out, at least more than I was used to. Roomie didn't like it that much himself. Said he bought it new in Michigan because there was a three year wait to get a Martin D28. Go figure.
That's all I got, dreadnut. Hope you get a chance to play a good Gibson some day, you might even like it. Bob Dylan and James Taylor liked their vintage Gibson J-50's back when they were comparatively new. Those aren't the type of guitars they play today, but those are the guitars they built their reputation on. Scratch, Sandy and I understand that. It's not that we don't like Guilds, it's that we like good guitars, regardless of what it says on the headstock.
HH
